


Words That Don’t Mean a Thing

by Achrya



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Fullmetal Alchemist 2003/Brotherhood Fusion, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Guilt, M/M, Mute Peter Parker, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Tony Stark Has A Heart, its made of automail
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 20:44:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18698806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Achrya
Summary: “Secrets Have a Cost. The Truth Does Too.”  This is something Tony knows better than most. He also knows how the Truth can change a person.If someone had told Tony Stark ten years ago he’d be working as a State Alchemist and willingly mentoring a young, traumatized omega prodigy, he would have laughed, and assumed they were in the middle of a bad trip. But here he is, doing just that.He doesn’t intend to get attached, or to do more than asked of him, but the more time he spends with Peter Parker the harder it becomes to separate duty and desire.





	Words That Don’t Mean a Thing

**Author's Note:**

> FMA AU, featuring omegaverse, cases adapted from canon for both source materials, and slow slow burn Starker. Very plotty. Taking a lot of liberties here with FMA worldbuilding and rules so. Keep that in mind.

“This is the place?” Tony asked, lowering his glasses to squint up at the ugly brick building. It wasn’t much to look at, but then Tony didn’t think much about things outside of Manhattan as a general rule, with it’s dirty off-pink facade, chipping paint on the shutters and door that was more gray than white at this point, and the thick bars on the window. Even the landscaping was lacking, grass brown and patchy, bushes bald in places, and the ivy on the sides choking out more than a few of the windows.

It looked more like Tony’s idea of a prison than it did a hospital.

“Yes.”

“And you want to recruit someone from here?” Tony asked, frowning.

“Yes.” Fury said, striding past him towards the concrete stairs, Coulson at his heels per usual. Tony made a face then, sighing, let his glasses fall back into place and dim the world around him. Well then. He’d already come all this way, cleared his very busy schedule and used this as an excuse to keep Pepper from coming and dragging him out of the lab to play an active role in the day to day business. Not that this looked like it was going to work out to be any more worth his time but probably marginally better than making time with rich assholes still stinging over the direction he’d taken the company.

And at least it was something different.

It wasn’t often that Fury tapped him for this sort of thing, Steve was a much better ‘Face of SHIELD’ than Tony, what with being friendly and not having the Merchant of Death label hovering in his past, even if most people seemed to have gotten over that whole thing, but here he was, forced out of the lab by the promise of this guy Fury was after being ‘interesting’. Tony had been skeptical about that, Fury’s idea of interesting rarely aligned with his own, but then Coulson has dropped a paper written by the guy they were after in his lap, about practical field medicine applications of alchemy, based on Tony and Bruce’s own research, and he’s had to concede the point. There weren’t a lot of people interested in the healing potential of alchemy, thinking it either impossible because of how it skirted the line of manipulating the human body with alchemy or just not trusting it. Or not seeing the profit in it, there was that too; people wanted to see weapons and money from the alchemist they sponsored, not human interests projects.

Tony’s father, the late great Howard Stark, at the forefront of automail development and alchemic weapons development, had always stressed that. Even when Tony, just past his tenth birthday, had developed a safe way to move automail from just exoskeletons and battle suits to prosthetics with nerve connection and sensitive movement potential his father hadn’t been interested beyond the war applications. He hadn’t even cared that Tony had, on his own time, absorbed enough medical knowledge to impress no small number of people in the bio-medical field.

But that has been over thirty years ago and Tony was past it. Over it. Absolutely not still dwelling over Howard or his many many father issues. Not at all.

The hospital was just as dismal inside. Dimly lit, sparsely staffed, patients hollow eyed and blank faced, listless in their chairs or beds when he was lead past their rooms, with the heavy scent of bleach and a sharp sour tang Tony was pretty sure was piss hanging thickly over everything.

Why did Tony get the feeling this was less a hospital and more a holding place for people no one wanted to deal with? A situation that was becoming more and more common the longer they were at war with literally all their neighboring countries, and the number of people with minds and bodies too shattered to function kept piling up.

Tony’s fingers twitched. He wondered how many people were in this place because of things he’d put his hands on.

Tony Stark was not, no matter what the papers and the misplaced adoration of the public liked to insist upon these days, a good man. Once upon a time there had been people had known and accepted that without question, journalists who labeled him A Merchant of Death and insisted that, even though he took no direct action in their county’s war, he’d seen more people dead than any soldier or, even, unit of soldiers. Not on the front line, with his own hands, but with the things he’d built, the tech he’d developed, his ability to weave together the tenants of alchemy with the technology he developed and adapted.

A not unimpressive alchemist in his own right, yes, but he’d been more interested in the science and the things he could study and bring to life. At the time that had been in the form of weapons, things bigger and badder than even his father ever dreamed up. He’d put power, overwhelming power, in the hands of the military and unleashed them onto their enemies without a single doubt about his path.

There was no doubt in his mind he’d filled up facilities like this a dozen times over.

“Here he is.” Fury announced, stopping just to the side of a closed door. A glance to the side showed a clipboard labeled ‘Parker, P’ and, uncaring of the slightly disapproving look from the nurse escorting them, Tony picked it up. Skimmed it quickly, a growing sense of unease creeping up on him. His heart started pounding, the familiar click-whir of the clockwork automail in his chest firing. It was all too familiar; suddenly he could taste copper on his tongue and hear the crackle of a fire, the pounding of his hammer, feel sweat and grime on his skin again.

There were other assumptions to make, it didn’t have to be what he thought- knew- it was going to be except..except Fury wouldn’t call him in for anything else. No mundane amputation would make Fury drag him all the way out here, no matter how brilliant the victim was. He’d suspected there was more to it even when Fury was making the pitch to him but now he knew for sure. Typical Fury, hiding the important bits for the sake of maneuvering people like chess pieces.

“He hasn’t made a noise since being brought in but there was no trauma to the throat or neck. Completely unresponsive to any kind of stimuli, in spite of being physically in perfect health. Clean separation of the lower right leg just above the knee, limb was never recovered.” Fury said. Tony looked up, a demand for more information already on his lips only to be confronted with Coulson holding out a brown folder, already open to show a glossy black and white photo. Tony saw the smudged circle, in the center of what looked like a bedroom, the overturned desk and bookshelf, the blood-there was so much blood. Puddled in the floor, smeared on the wall, splattered on what seemed like every available surface.

A turn of the page and he was looking a at the same room, but with the addition of what looked like a body, though calling it that was generous. Thin, hanging flesh, protruding bones, thin knitted hair, and a face twisted in so much agony it barely looked human.

There was a neat bullet hole right between the brows.

“Who-“

“An uncle. Dead eight months before the attempted revival. There was an aunt too, but all we could find of her was a leg. Lower right.” Fury rattled off, stony face giving away nothing. Which was very like him and completely fine because Tony was sure his face said everything there was to say about the situation.

Someone else in the world was too curious, too smart, too fucking stupid and arrogant and had made the same mistake. Someone else had seen The Door.

That someone, as it turned out, was a kid. Or at least looked like a kid to Tony when he walked into the dark room, lit only the sun fighting to get through the dingy, barred glass of the window. He looked small, swallowed up by the hospital bed, deathly pale even against the starched, sterile white of his sheets, so gaunt his dark eyes were starting to sink in or maybe it was just the deep lines and bruising under his eyes that made it appear so. His hair was lank, greasy, and hung down over his face. Everything about him was sharp angles and points, barely softened by the sheets tucked around him, save the glaringly empty spot where his right leg should have been. There were wilted flowers by his bedside and a well worn book beside it, though it looked to be collecting a thin layer of dust. Like everything else in this place the air was stale and reeked of cleaning product but just underneath there was a mellow, almost sweetness to it. It made Tony’s teeth itch.

‘Parker, P’ didn’t stir when Tony walked into the room or to his bedside. Tony’s chest and arm twinged and whirred.

“So between me, you, and those shady guys in suits behind me,” Tony said, leaning over the empty eyed boy so he was in his face, couldn’t be ignored. “What did you see on the otherside of the Door?”

Parker’s pupils widened.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should add and stress that Tony’s heart is only partially automail. Also one of his arms and a foot. It’s fine tho. Totally fine.


End file.
